A few days ago, I got the honor of visiting the Greisinger Museum, a museum dedicated to Tolkien which hosts the largest collection of Middle-Earth pieces, with over 3000 books, 10000 illustrations and 12000 memorablia, of which I was only able to get a few glimpses. Please let it be known that I have very few pictures of the books, as most of them are signed and the museum forbade me from taking pictures of them.
I first got to visit the Hobbit-Hole, or Smial though I felt it had too little windows to be one.
Wonderful picture, which I did not take, the ones i did take are less artsy and more low-res.
I enjoy showing pictures other people took.
These images are mainly here to give you an idea of how the room felt.
As I came to the museum, I found myself standing in a small valley, at the heart of the swiss alps, the same which inspired Tolkien in 1911, as he began imagining such wonderful places as the misty mountains or Rivendell. Sadly it's a bit too summery to see any snow capped peaks, even though we were nearing the 800m above sea level.
While it may seem a simple, thin reproduction of Bag end's door in "The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey", this door was almost 17cm wide, carved out of wood, quite heavy and with a fragile frame.
The tour was led by a friend of Mr Greisinger, whom we would meet later, wearing an eowyn-like dress. As a matter of fact Mr Greisinger does the german tours himself dressed up as Thorin Oakenshield ! Yet we choose the french tour as my german is quite appaling.
The illustrations above are from the Tolkien calendar, as a matter of fact Mr Greisinger even owns the original 1969 Unofficial Tolkien Calendar by Ken Rudolph.
They also own the contract from "an Unexpected Journey", one of the stage props to be used.
Our guide told us something interesting :
There is 1 ring to rule them all,
3 for elf-kings,
7 for dwarf lords,
9 for mortal men,
the Hobbit was published in 1937, and Tolkien died in 1973.
Quite a cool coincidence isn't it ?
Very cool 'Bilbo Baggins' themed desk
original red book of westmarch, not the Indy Magnoli one, with a limited amout of copies ranging from 5 to 19.
A nice compilation of illustrations.
'Look Mr Frodo, it's Bilbo's trolls !'
Good morning Mr Gandalf !
Jon Howe Smaug bronze sculpture, they don't have any originals from him, but they do have an original Alan Lee in the Gondor room.
Anway there is a lot more to see, but I don't have time to show it all, next room is Moria !
- The Mad Hobbit.
